Fantasy Baseball -- Impact of the trading deadline on pitchers

What does the MLB trade season mean to you?

It is the part of the baseball season when good players go from the dredges of the league to contenders. Where top-tier prospects get swapped and get their chance at big league jobs with bad clubs and minor moves make all the difference when it comes for a chance at October glory.

It is also one of the last opportunities for fantasy owners to make roster changes for the final push at the coveted league title.

Owners who have players like Cliff Lee, Dan Haren and Roy Oswalt are satisfied that the marquee pitchers on their rosters have moved on to greener pastures. When it comes to fantasy, the hope is that what real-life general managers did in July (and into the waiver season of August) translates into a couple extra wins, strikeouts, runs or home runs for fantasy owners.

That is the perception at least.

It does not always work out like that though. Lee is obviously worth more to the Rangers (and to fantasy owners) than he was for the Mariners. Through 13 starts in Seattle this season, Lee was a 3.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) pitcher, posting and 8-3 record with a 2.34 ERA through 103.2 innings. The Mariners are dead last in the majors this year in runs scored so it would figure to benefit Lee to move over to a Texas team that historically been known for its pop and sits at sixth in the league in the scoring department.

In theory.

So it is with baseball. What seems like a no-brainer outcome – better team, better offense, more wins – is no sure thing. In Lee’s 13 starts with the Mariners the team scored a respectable 4.8 runs per game for him (slightly above the league average of 4.7). The Rangers in six starts thus far?

A tick above 2.4.

That leaves Lee at 2-2 early in his Texas career. His ERA is higher that it was in Seattle at 2.63 while his home run rate has raised from .4 per nine innings to .7 and his strikeouts per nine has decreased from 7.7 to 6.5 (his career rate is 6.8).

This will even out, to a certain extent. So far Lee’s WAR in Texas is 1.7, a little more than half of what he had in Seattle in about half as many games. Yet, The Ball Park at Arlington (or whatever it is being called these days) has never been a friendly place when it comes to pitchers and home runs, so Lee’s ERA is probably not going to drop back down the 2.00 level, no matter how much Nolan Ryan or Chuck Greenberg compel him or how many carrots are promised in his next contract. Texas is just not friendly to pitchers. Of the nine home runs that Lee has given up this year, four have come with Texas, all at home (with three coming against Baltimore in his first start in a Rangers uniform).

Lee has perhaps 10 starts left with the Rangers this year. It is a fair assumption that Texas will start scoring more than 2.4 runs per each of his starts but it is not a foregone conclusion. If he wins eight of those starts, it will be a minor coup.

So, what is the fantasy conclusion for Lee now that he is in a Ranger uniform? Trade him now. Trade him to a pitching-needy team that is willing to pay for the perceived promise of those eight wins and make them overpay for a potential Cy Young winner. If you cannot extort a fair sum from your opponent you can keep him on the roster and know that he will not be hurting you down the stretch.

Let’s take a look at some of the early returns of big name pitchers changing teams.

Haren

With Arizona – 21 starts, 141 innings, 7 wins, 8 losses, 4.60 ERA, 1.348 WHIP, 9 K/9

With Los Angeles – 3 starts, 20 innings, 0 wins, 2 losses, 3.60 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 7.2 K/9

Analysis – If you are in a keeper league, you should be very happy that Haren is out of the Arizona desert and into the California one. Yet, the Angels this year are not exactly a “good” team and Haren moves to the tougher league. So far his peripheral numbers look a little better than with the Diamondbacks but all you can really count on Haren for is strikeouts. Fantasy analysis? Keep him stashed away at the bottom of your rotation and let him help you in his one reliable category.

Oswalt

With Houston – 20 starts, 129 innings, 6 wins, 12 losses, 3.42 ERA, 1.109 WHIP, 8.4 K/9

With Philadelphia – 2 starts, 12.1 innings, 0 wins, 1 loss, 4.38 ERA, 1.297 WHIP, 6.6 K/9

Analysis – Oswalt was motivated towards the end of his Astros career and his 8.4 K/9 (over a 7.4 mark through his career) was evidence of that. As such it appears that he is going through a bit of a “dead-arm” period right now with the Phillies and his numbers has suffered the short-terms effects of that correspondingly. Good for keeper leagues but trade him now if you can.

Matt Capps –

With Washington – 47 appearances, 46 innings, 3 wins, 3 losses, 26 saves, 2.64 ERA, 1.304 WHIP, 7.4 K/9

With Minnesota – 5 appearances, 5 innings, 1 win, 0 losses, 2 saves, 1.80 ERA, 1.400 WHIP, 14.4 K/9

Analysis – There is no reason to think that Capps cannot get it done in the Twin Cities the way he was getting it done with the slightly-less-than-awful-than-usual Nationals. He is a fair candidate to make an attempt to trade for as Minnesota battles for its playoff life.

 Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Baseball: Yunel Escobar -- Wherever you go, there you are

Yunel Escobar rounds third after grand slam
 homerun July 18 against Baltimore. Image from
Toronto Sun (via Reuters).

I am always a little skeptical when pundits and scouts say that all a struggling player needs is “a change of scenery.” Yet, with limited access to actual major league clubhouses, there is little insight I can give into how a certain player is fairing on the field because of the situation around him.

Sometimes a change of scenery is really what is needed to offer a boost of moral and productivity. Think about it: Have you ever left a job just to go somewhere else to do the same exact job and been much happier for it?

My guess is that you probably have and, at least initially, you thought that the move was the best possible thing that you could have done for yourself. Yet, one of the simplest and oldest clichés applies to the change of scenery notion of productivity.

Wherever you go, there you are.

A mere hop from one spot on the map to another is not going to change the fundamental characteristics of your personality. Yes, it may offer a temporary blip of energy and purpose, but after a while you find that you are doing the exact same things that you did not like (or others did not like about you) in the place that you left. Without fundamental character growth and maturity, a will to engage life in a professional manner, you are bound to regress back to the level of productivity that had become your statistical norm. If being complacent or angry or easy-going is in your nature, a brand new location is not going to fundamentally change that characteristic.

Given that this is a fantasy baseball article and the MLB trade deadline is ten days away, you may see what I am getting at here.

I am speaking specifically of Blue Jays’ shortstop Yunel Escobar, who was traded from the Braves to Toronto for Alex Gonzalez on July 14. I will circle back to Escobar shortly.

Think about some of the prominent trades in the last couple of years. The biggest and most pertinent name in this discussion would have to be pitcher Cliff Lee, currently with the Rangers after having been shipped from Cleveland to Philadelphia to Seattle and finally to Texas since last year’s trade deadline. Lee, regarded as one of the most professional players in baseball, has not changed a bit in the maelstrom of moves since leaving the Indians. In that period he has pitched 201.1 innings with an absurd 10.05 strikeout to walk ratio (171/17) with a 15-8 record and nine complete games. In going from Seattle to Austin earlier this month he just kept on chugging along, going nine innings in both of his first two starts with his new team. Clearly this is not a player affected by environment.

Now let’s go back and look at the trade that sent Manny Ramirez from Boston to Los Angeles in 2008. Ramirez, who was regressing due to age despite still being a very productive hitter, found new life down the stretch for the Dodgers hitting .396/.489/.743 for a ridiculous 1.232 OPS with 17 homeruns and 53 RBI in 229 plate appearances. His line before leaving the Red Sox that year was .299/.398/.529, an OPS of .926 with 20 homeruns and 68 RBI. That is a rather large statistical jump as he produced nearly as many homeruns and RBI with the Dodgers as he did with the Red Sox in nearly half the plate appearances. His OPS+ split between the two was 136 in Boston to 221 in Los Angeles (with 100 being considered average on a percentage scale).

Since that torrid stretch, Ramirez has regressed back to his career means. Take into account the alleged lack of performance enhancing drugs and his age he has not really changed as a hitter. His 155 OPS+ in 2009 and his 152 mark in so far in 2010 (in limited playing time due to suspension and an increasing injury rate) are right in line with his career OPS+ of 155.

Granted, there was no way that Ramirez could have sustained his 2008 performance with the Dodgers but it does go to show the temporary benefits of change of scenery can do for a player. In the end though, Manny is still Manny, no matter where he is playing.

Now for Escobar. This is a talented shortstop who, at the age of 27, should be approaching his prime production period of his career. His career slash line of .293/.370/.408 is respectable if a little light on the slugging side (.414 is about league average slugging) and he has a career 107 OPS+ over 450 games and 1867 plate appearances. That makes him seven percent better than a league average shortstop. His 2009 breakout, which was to be expected of a player entering his third year in The Show, of .299/.377/.436 is perhaps a touch higher than his expected overall performance over the course of his career but does offer a decent guideline into what type of player he can be – a slightly better than league-average middle infielder with a propensity for streakiness depending on his mood.

The Braves could not wait to get Escobar out of Atlanta and gave him up for a shortstop with a career OPS+ of 81 (which is, oddly enough, Escobar’s 2010 OPS+) and a couple middling prospects. For a business-like team trying to win in manager Bobby Cox’s last season, his lack of professionalism and poor fielding as a consequence were a poison on the field and in the clubhouse.

It should then come as no surprise that Escobar has been on fire in his first couple of games in Toronto going 8 for 17 with four runs, two homeruns and seven RBI. Contrast that to his run production in Atlanta (28 runs, zero homeruns and 19 RBI in 301 plate appearances) and it is clear that the change of location has lit a temporary fire under Escobar.

Before Blue Jays fans and fantasy owners get too excited though, remember that this cannot last. Escobar is at an age where he is not a likely candidate for any remarkable statistical breakout and eventually he will be what he has been all along . . . decent but not outstanding.

Ultimately it will come down to Yunel being Yunel, no matter what city he plays in.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Baseball -- Putting Boesch in perspective

I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

How does the 25^th best prospect in the Tigers organization heading into Spring Training get a call up in late April and then go on a rampage for the next two months, with little sign of slowing down?

I am talking, of course, about Detroit rookie outfielder Brennan Boesch.

It is confounding, I tell you. It is like the 25 year old woke up sometime in February and said “this is my year.” And it has been. Through 15 games and 66 plate appearances at Triple-A Toledo Boesch hit .379/.455/.621, good for an OPS of 1.076 and three home runs. Despite the small sample size, the Tigers liked what they were seeing and brought Boesch to the big leagues on April 23 and he has subsequently hit .332/.380/.602 in with 12 home runs and 45 RBI in 56 games and 229 plate appearances with Detroit.

Yet, this is a career minor league hitter with a .274/.321/.432 slash line who had 51 home runs (though also 25 triples ) in 1811 minor league at bats.

What gives?

Twenty-five is a good age for young hitters. It is about the time where you know if a player is going to be an actual major leaguer or just a guy who keeps his bags packed – the Quadruple-A variety. His minors slash line, though not overly impressive (pretty near identical to average, actually), does not show a hitter who was in over his head. Yet, there is also nothing there to suggest that the Boesch we have seen so far is the one that will be seen for the rest of his career, let alone his immediate future. Let’s take a look at some splits.

In the minors, Boesch had a ground ball/ line drive/ fly ball percentage (GB/LD/DB) of 48.7/15.3/35.9 with 16.9 percent of those fly balls (FB+LD) coming in the infield. In his short stint in Toledo in April those percentages were skewed as his line drive rate went up while his ground ball and fly ball rate went down at 36.6/34.1/29.3 with none of his fly balls coming in the infield at all. The sample size was so small and he was raking so hard that every ball he hit in the air was finding the outfield. That is simply unsustainable.

Now that he is in the majors, his GB/FB split is .75 with a 20 percent line drive rate and 19 percent of those fly balls in the infield. Yet, his home run rate has gone way up, with 15.4 percent of his fly balls going for home runs, almost twice the league average of 7.1 percent. For context, David Ortiz’s HR/FB rate this year is 19.1 percent but his career average is 13.8, still quite high against the average.

What does this tell us? Foremost, that Boesch has been hot, but any major league pitcher, general manager or astute fantasy player could tell you that. Second, he is outplaying his career norms by a little more than one standard deviation. Third, he has been getting a touch lucky.

When it comes to luck though, Boesch has always seemed to be the beneficiary of good fortune in his professional career. His minor league batting average on balls in play (BABIP, a fair measure of how lucky a hitter is, with any league average around .300) was .316. An impressive number when you consider his 1811 career minor league plate appearances and his almost exact league average of 68 percent balls in play percentage. Though his 58 at bats in the minors this year, his BABIP was .500.  So far, his major league BABIP is .379. This just cannot continue.

Then there are the home runs. Boesch is hitting a home run in his rookie season once every 17.6 at bats. That is about double the rate that he hit his 51 home runs in the minors at one per 35.5 at bats. Think of this: the major league average of at bats per home run is 36.6 putting Boesch’s minor league history right in line with major league averages.

Starting to sense a theme here?

I would hope so, because I am laying it on pretty thick. The general conclusion to be made here is that Boesch’s outstanding numbers are unsustainable given his history. At the same time it is hard to say that Boesch will just simply fall off a cliff.  He will eventually regress to his means, which are not all that bad. The thing about Boesch’s means are that they are surprisingly close to the average slash line of a major league player. Major league averages tend to fall very close to .265/.325/.414 year after year. Going back to Boesch’s career minor league line of .274/.321/.432 and, what do you know, almost the same.

Boesch reminds me of another young outfielder to come out of the minors and surprise folks with outstanding and surprising hitting before falling back to earth (and staying there) for the rest of his career (so far).  That player came out of the minors with 1429 career at bats, 53 home runs and line of .285/.332/.480, a little better than Boesch, but similar. He got called up late in 2005 and hit .300/.336/.549 in 257 at bats with 14 home runs and 45 RBI. Boesch at this point is a little above that level but if he continues his 17.6 at bats per home run, he will be at about the same as that particular hot rookie who everybody thought was going to be a mainstay for years to come.

That 2005 rookie’s name?

Jeff Francoeur.

Frenchy’s career line after five seasons is .270/.311/.430 and has been a perpetual frustration and disappointment to fans and fantasy leaguers everywhere. So, before you get too high on Boesch, remember that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Just wait.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Image from The Detroit News.

Fantasy Baseball -- Market Efficiency Royalties

Editors Note: This column can be found at RotoInfo.com in the near future.

At this point in the fantasy baseball season it may be hard to take advantage of most market efficiencies in certain statistical categories. A lot of owners are either jumping on trending players quick or jumping at any ghost of a player that goes on a hot streak just to try and gain some momentum and get back into the league race.

One thing popped out at me this weekend though while watching Kansas City and Boston split a four-game series – the Royals’ batters have some decent batting averages.

Before running into the Clay Buchholz/Jon Lester buzz saw in the final two games of the series and watching the its team average drop from .280 to .278, Kansas City was leading the majors in batting average (the Yankees jumped them at .282 entering Memorial Day). The Royals have a plethora of contact hitters led by Billy Butler who has a .348 batting average and is emerging as a great second-tier first base option and a force in the mid-West.

But there is more to the Kansas City batting spree than Butler. Alberto Callaspo is hitting .287, David DeJesus .286, Scott Posednik .296, Yuniesky Betancourt .281 and Jason Kendall .286, all of which are not misnomers based on number of plate appearances accumulated thus far. Add to that Mitch Maier at .272 and Mike Aviles at .327 (in three-quarters at-bats, granted) and there are things to like about these hitters and their sky-blue uniforms.

This is where the market efficiency comes into play. The Royals, by definition of being, well, the Royals, tend to only get serious fantasy consideration when there are players like Butler or Zack Greinke playing like their heads are on fire (or for that next contract that will get them out of western Missouri). Except for Butler, the rest of the Royals are a flawed team and it is actually hard to call them a terrific offense. They have a cumulative .338 on-base percentage (eighth in the majors) and are just about average in slugging percentage at .412 (12^th in the majors). That adds up to 224 runs thus far, 17^th in the majors. Those are not numbers that create the type of fantasy buzz around a group of hitters that make them much sought after commodities.

Which is a good thing for you, especially if you need to pick up some points in the batting average category.

The specific players to keep and eye on and go after if they are on the free agent junk pile in shallow to middling leagues are Aviles, DeJesus, Podsednik and Callaspo. Aviles is getting a lot of time at second base recently and hit .330 in 100 plate appearances in May after missing most of April. He had a respectable 17 runs to show for it, so he will not kill you in that department either. He is definitely a player to look at if you are a Dustin Pedroia or Chase Utley owner and are frustrated by their extended slumps that show little signs of turning around any time soon. Granted, Pedroia and Utley are basically the two best second basemen in the majors, but giving your fantasy roster a little breather to test Aviles out for a week and let the two All-Stars get back on track may be a worthwhile short term investment. You can always stash Aviles on your bench in the meantime as insurance.

DeJesus has been a solid fantasy contributor since 2005 and his career slash line of .286/.358/.426 has is right in line with his 2010 line of .286/.369/.444. He is not a first tier outfielder but he does sneak into the bottom of the second tier and would be a good pickup in a trade that included a couple other pieces. He will probably score another 40 to 60 runs this year that would definitely be decent production on your roster.

Callaspo is nowhere near being your everyday starting third baseman but he offers decent power to go along with his batting average to make him worthwhile. He has seven homeruns already this year with a .480 slugging percentage and looks at least double his career high of 11 homeruns from last year. Callaspo would be more or less a straight batting average pick up because his ISO (Isolated Power Rating, slugging percentage minus on-base percentage) of .191 is well above his career average of .131, promising a regression closer to his career mean later in the season. He is also versatile and, depending on your league, he may be available at third, shortstop and second base depending upon league availability formats. Players that can fill in across the lineup are always valued on fantasy rosters (with Ben Zobrist being the gold standard in that venue).

Podsednik is a little bit of a blast from fantasy baseball past. He was a must-have from 2004-06 with the Brewers and White Sox in terms of stolen bases, average and runs scored before falling off in 2007-08 before bouncing back to be viable last year. He continues his reemergence in the fantasy realm this year with 16 stolen bases thus far to go along with his near .300 hitting. You could do a lot worse than target him in a trade, especially if you are falling too far behind in the stolen base category.

Kendall has been, and will always be, a lower end fantasy catcher. The problem with Kendall, and yes, this is a bit oxymoronic, is that he plays too much. In reality, he is a great catcher to have on a major league roster. He plays hard, hates to sit and always has a decent batting average. He averages 134 games a year, great for a catcher and his career .290 batting average is nothing to sneeze at. Then again, he also average three homeruns a year with 58 RBI, so yes, there are better options behind the plate. Kendall always seems like the catcher that is readily available either on the waiver wire or via trade for teams that have missed out on the top-tier fantasy catchers and end up more or less wasting that roster spot with the hopes that guys like Dioner Navarro will somehow decide it is 2008 all over again.

Then there is Betancourt. Under no circumstances would I ever endorse Betancourt who is considered by many to be one of the very worst players in the majors. While a lot of the Royals offer some value in multiple categories, Betancourt is good for his average with a .275 career mark but that is about it. Kansas City general manager Dayton Moore, noted for his lack of sabermetric acumen, likes players like Betancourt because they have good batting averages even if they have historically bad on-base percentages (Betancourt’s career on-base mark is laughably horrific). If you are looking at any of the Royals, better just to stop if Betancourt’s name is mentioned.

Overall though, Kansas City as a group has distinct skills that can provide at least some temporary benefit to your fantasy roster. Being that that they are the Royals, you might be able to pick them up on the cheap as well. As the calendar turns to June, that is not something to be overlooked, even if everybody else does.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Baseball: Catch These Rays

Flipping through some league stats the other day and one thing popped out to me – the Rays are leading the American League in ERA … by a full run. Surely, I thought, the Rays are good, but are they that good?

So, I dove into the numbers. As of Wednesday the Rays team ERA was 2.92. The next closest team was the Mariners at 3.72. So, not a full run, but close enough for even casual baseballs observers to sputter on their beers.

How are the Rays so good? More importantly for this space, how can they help your fantasy baseball team?

Really, it all comes down to the starters. David Price, Jeff Niemann, James Shields and Matt Garza all have ERAs under 3.00 and rookie Wade Davis is not far behind them in the maturation process at 4.01.  They are all young and healthy with Shields the leader at age 28 that, coincidentally, is smack in the middle of “peak years” for starting pitchers (between the ages of 27 to 31, more or less).

The staff as a whole holds opposing hitters to a .227 batting average, .291 on-base percentage and .362 slugging percentage. Consider that league averages tend to be .264/.325/.414, then it goes to show how impressive the Rays staff has been. The peripheries statistics back up what the staff is doing as well with 7.6 hits per nine innings, 2.9 walks per nine, 7.3 strikeouts per nine a 2.5 strikeouts per walk.

The leader in the clubhouse is probably Shields but the maturation of former No. 1 overall pick Price makes him the undoubted leader on the field (and in your fantasy league) through the first two months of the season. A 7-1 record with 2.41 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 46 strikeouts through 59.2 innings pitched tends speaks for itself. That correlates to 6.9 strikeouts per nine, a touch lower than his career average of 7.1, 2.00 strikeouts per walk and an ERA+ of 176 (whereas an average major league pitcher would be 100). Price has done improved incrementally from his relatively disappointing 2009 by throwing more strikes (65 percent ahead of 63 percent in 2009) and doing it early (62 percent first pitch strikes, four percentage points over last season). His secondary pitches have improved and hence hitters have been swinging less and striking out looking more. The only thing that might be concerning about Price is that his batting average against on ball in play (BABIP) is .243, which is a little more than have the league average year-to-year of .300 meaning he may have found some luck in the early going but overall his stuff is good enough that even if it does rise into the .290-.300 range, he should still be able to keep wracking up the numbers. With an average draft position of 164 in ESPN leagues, Price has been a steal for a lot of fantasy owners this season.

Price, like the rest of the Rays pitchers, benefits from a strong Tampa Bay offense that averages 5.3 runs scored per games started, above the league average of 4.6.  With a run-differential of +95 though, any of the Rays pitchers should be a good bet to give you wins in your league.

Following Price would probably be Garza with a 5-2 record, 2.41 ERA and ridiculously low 1.082 WHIP through 64.2 innings pitched. His peripheries are better than Price’s too at 7.5 K/9 and 2.70 K/BB and 2.8 BB/9. His walk rate is .7 below that of Price that leads to his low WHIP. Add it all up and Garza leads the team with an ERA+ of 176.

Shields is similar to Garza but not quite as spectacular. The Rays rely on him to be the steadying influence and primary innings eater and he leads the team in innings pitched this year at 69.1 after Tuesday’s start where he was the hard-luck loser to Jon Lester and the Red Sox as the Rays were one-hit by Boston in a 2-0 loss. Shields took the loss, bringing his record to 5-2 with a 2.99 ERA, 1.226 WHIP and a 146 ERA+. Shields’s BABIP is high and the folks at Baseball Info Solutions that put out The Fielding Bible have put together a metric that says Shields has been among one of the unluckiest pitchers in the majors thus far this year (whereas Price has actually been the third luckiest).

The backend of the rotation between Niemann and Davis is decent but Davis, like Price before him, has been having some rookie-like outings in his first season and Niemann has been the beneficiary of some luck himself through the first part of the season. Niemann’s era of 2.54 will not stay that low as his BABIP is low at 2.44 and his “strand rate” (runners allowed left on base at the end of an inning) of 84.5 percent is 13.5 points above the league average of 71 percent. Both of those numbers will go back towards the league average and Niemann’s ERA (and ERA+ of 167) will rise back to the 3.80 range or so by the end of the year. But, with a career average of 2.12 K/BB and the Rays putting up runs behind him he should remain to be a viable fantasy starter but with an own-rate of 90.7 percent in ESPN fantasy leagues, he may be available on the waiver wire in shallower leagues and his WHIP of 1.09 and 4-0 record should look attractive to teams in need of stability on their pitching staff. Also, like Price, his average draft position of 260 makes him a great value for those prescient enough to pick him at towards the end of the draft.

Davis is one to keep and eye on. As of yet he is not a great fantasy option except in deep mixed leagues or in head-to-head leagues when he is a two-start pitcher. He is just 4-4 (which gives him three more wins than Zack Greinke, but that won’t last long) with the aforementioned 4.01 ERA and a 1.480 WHIP translating into a 106 ERA+, making him slightly above average. Yet, when times get tough in the dogs days of fantasy baseball summers, an average major league pitcher on the best team in the league starts to look like a great option. Davis has the talent to go on a streak and will definitely be available in most leagues as a free agent pickup.

Overall, you cannot really go wrong with any of the Rays starting five. None of them were the most sought-after pitchers in drafts this spring but putting together a couple of them (for instance, trading for Shields and Garza if you already own Price) should be able to carry your team to contention come September.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Baseball: The Stud Call-Up Season Is Here

It is my favorite time of the fantasy baseball year and where my usually title contending teams separate from the pack if I hit on the right player.

It is rookie stud call-up season.

Now, you might be thinking that September is really call-up season. While that is the 40-man roster expansion date and picking up some rookies then can help your team down the stretch, usually by September you are pretty entrenched into you position in your fantasy league and that little extra boost will do nothing for 95 percent of fantasy owners. Also, the difference in the late-May, early-June call-up season and September is that the guys coming up earlier in the year are the studs who were sent down at the end of Spring Training either for a little extra seasoning or two set their arbitration clocks back and keep them from becoming Super Two category players. The players coming for September are on either end of the spectrum – the older veteran free agent waived in mid-August or the too-young-to-be-MLB-ready youngster ending minor league years but played well enough for a cup of coffee.

For instance, when Dustin Pedroia got his initial call-up in September of 2006 for a Red Sox team that had fallen out of contention. He got 98 plate appearances and had a .191 batting average, .258 on-base percentage and .303 slugging with two home runs, seven RBI and no stolen bases. The next two years, “Laser Show” Pedroia was the Rookie of the Year and the American League Most Valuable Player. It was much better to pick him up in late May of 2007 when he got hot (and has pretty much stayed hot) as opposed to grabbing him the previous September when there was hype about the Sox bringing up a solid second round second baseman.

So, depending on the service time of the player, this is the time of year that they are being brought up. My guess is that a fair amount of you reading this either already have Stephen Strasburg stowed away or someone on your league does, so I will avoid the obvious. Yet, 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for young talent outside Strasburg and Jason Heyward and picking these guys up or keeping them on your radar could be the difference from fighting for position come September or watching as the big boys battle it out while you are trying to figure out who the backup running back to Darren McFadden will be.

There are some imminent arrivals on the horizon:

Outfielders –

Mike Stanton – Florida

Jose Tabata – Pittsburgh

Desmond Jennings – Tampa Bay

Michael Taylor – Oakland

Third Base –

Pedro Alvarez – Pittsburgh

Josh Bell – Baltimore

Catchers –

Buster Posey – San Francisco

Carlos Santana – Cleveland

Tyler Flowers – White Sox

Pitchers –

Kyle Drabeck – Toronto

Chris Tillman – Baltimore

Jake Arrieta – Baltimore

Jeremy Hellickson – Tampa Bay

Tanner Scheppers – Texas

Note: These are all players who are still in the minors but should find space on their major league rosters sometime within the next month-and-a-half. There are a couple other players in this rookie group that deserve some attention as well such as Drew Storen who has the potential to close for the Nationals, Starlin Castro at shortstop for the Cubs. It is also worth it to take major looks at Mike Leake of the Reds and Wade Davis of the Rays as starting pitchers who began the year with their big league clubs and are having strong starts to their seasons.

But, back to the potential call-ups. The biggest names on that short list there are Posey, Stanton, Drabeck and maybe Tillman. Few scouts have doubts that these players will sooner than later be impact major leaguers and all but Tillman should get regular time once they get the call (the Orioles bullpen is so woeful that Tillman and Arrieta are probably headed there before getting thrown to the Camden Yards fire).

The reason that Stanton, Drabeck and Posey will be immediate starters (probably on your fantasy team as well) is because their parent teams have glaring weaknesses at their positions. The Giants cannot hit a lick and Posey lengthens their lineup well while probably kicking Aubrey Huff out of the lineup or to the outfield. The Marlins have atrocious numbers from their corner outfielders (looking at you, again, Cameron Maybin) and Toronto needs pitching to go with a surprisingly strong offense.

Let’s take a closer look at each of those players. Stanton was a second round pick by the Marlins in 2007 and is 21 in November. A lot of player development professionals want to see young hitters play well in the minors for about 1500 plate appearances and as of Saturday Stanton had 1338 from rookie league to double-A Jackonsonville in 310 games. This year through 39 games he has 17 home runs and 43 RBI with a .313/.446/.741 line, exceptional in everyway after struggling initially with Jacksonville in a mid-season promotion in 2009. Given that little bit of history, the Marlins might like to see how Stanton does at triple-A New Orleans but at this point the clock is set to “when” not “if” for this season.

Posey has already got the call-up to the Giants and has 40 innings behind the plate under his belt with 17 plate appearances. With a -38 OPS+ rating, he has not done much yet but there is a good chance he will find his groove this year and be a semi-productive catcher at one of the weakest positions in all of fantasy baseball. He had 723 plate appearances in his minor league career with a .328/.423/.534 line and in 41 games at triple-A Fresno this year had 181 plate appearances with a .333/.431/520 line with five home runs and 28 RBI. That is a major-league ready catcher if there has ever been one and it is worth keeping a close eye on him when his bat catches up to big league pitching.

Drabeck probably will not set the league on fire but has the potential to be a stabilizer. This year in double-A New Hampshire he is 5-4 with 48 strikeouts, 3.59 ERA and 1.424 WHIP in nine games started and 52.2 innings pitched. Those are not particularly great numbers, especially considering his peripheries of 4.1 walks per nine innings, and 2.00 strikes per walk but his 8.7 strikeout per nine innings is promising and should not fall below 7.00 or so when he comes to the majors. If he can cut down on his wildness, especially in the big leagues, it is not out of reason to assume that he can stay around his minor league levels of 3.68 ERA and 8.2 strikeouts per nine with a much more respectable 1.286 WHIP.

Perhaps Tillman or Scheppers are more to your liking on the pitching front or you are higher on Jennings than Stanton. The point is that these are potential impact players in reality that means they could definitely be difference makers on your fantasy roster very soon. Keep an eye out on the transaction wire in the next month so you can be the first to lock them down when the time comes.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

The Perfect Game Mirage: Dallas Braden

A lot of mid-season fantasy baseball is about chasing mirages. You think you see something in a young, unheralded prospect who has had a good week getting time filling in for a veteran and you go pick him up off the waiver wire only to have him bat .178 for the next three weeks and get designated for assignment.

Or maybe you see a seldom used veteran get a chance to start and put up some decent numbers. Marco Scutaro was a late bloomer. So was Denard Span. Then you have also-rans like Nick Green for the Red Sox last year or Darnell McDonald this year who, despite some dramatics, are not worth a spot on your fantasy roster. That does not mean that somebody in your league is not going to put him on his roster.

But, by far the biggest mirage that gets fantasy owners frothing is when a marginal pitcher comes out of nowhere and throws a no-hitter, or in Dallas Braden’s case, a perfect game. There was a fairly good chance that Braden was available in your league as he was owned in only 65 percent of owners in ESPN free leagues earlier this week. He saw a spike in ownership right after the perfect game and a lot of activity on the trade line.

But, other than Braden making some early season waves when he became irate with superstar Alex Rodriguez for crossing the mound when returning to first base from third after a foul ball, there has not been much to Braden to remark upon in his career. The question becomes: is Dallas Braden really a guy you want to go out of your way to acquire at this point in the season?

The answer is that he is in the middle somewhere. If he is not on your roster, I would not go out your way to get him. He is a good option in deeper mixed leagues or as an waiver acquisition during two-start weeks but there are a fair amount of starting pitchers you can find at this point in the year with middling strikeout numbers and a couple of wins to their name. At 4-2 with and ERA of 3.33 (a Fielding Independent Pitching line – FIP -- of 3.45 indicating the level he is actually pitching at on an ERA scale) he is pitching about half a run better than his line last year of 3.89 (3.73 FIP which is rare that the number would go down instead of up, especially considering his park weighted xFIP was at 4.80) and his peripheries say that will probably drop to at least the 3.90 range sometime within the next month.

Now, that is pretty good when looking at backend fantasy options. But within a standard 5x5 roto world, there is more to it than just ERA. He plays for the Athletics, a team that has trouble hitting and has averaged 3.9 runs per game of support for him through his career (4.2 this year). League average tends to be around 4.42. He had five “tough losses” last year in 22 starts. A “tough loss” is categorized as a loss for a pitcher when he has registered a quality start (6 IP, 3 ER or less). This year he has one in seven starts so wins can be a concern.

He is a starter, so saves are out of the question as a value category so he should provide good WHIP and strikeout numbers to be of value. This year, his WHIP is fantastic at .96 through 46 innings pitched. He has reduced that this year by dramatically reducing his walks per nine innings from 3.14 in 2008 to 2.77 in 2009 and then cut in half to 1.37 this year. For a guy with a history of walking guys in the big leagues, it is hard to imagine that he can keep his walks per nine under 2.00 for the year and hence his WHIP will adjust correspondingly. Braden also has a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of .245, about .55 below league average and .63 below his career average of .308. Put these two stats together and it says that he is pitching a little over his head in terms of his historical reference points.

Braden’s career major league strikeout per nine innings ratio is a very mediocre 5.65 even after he put up great strikeout numbers through the minor leagues. This year he is right at his average at 5.48 so he is not a guy who will really help you get ahead in the strikeout category. He will help you tread water, certainly, but a roster full of Bradens would be destined to finish the bottom half in that statistical category.

It is not unheard of for a pitcher to really start tuning it up in his mid to late 20s. Braden is 26 and due for some type of breakout, even with his relatively mediocre stuff topping out at 87 miles per hour with his fastball and a deceiving if overly unimpressive slider. He could turn into a late-career Tom Glavine type or even Jamie Moyer but that is not exactly the type of comparison a 26-year-old pitcher with 53 career MLB starts under his belt wants to hear.

Think of Braden like Aaron Laffey with an attitude. Baseball-Reference.com lists Laffey as one of Braden’s top comparables with a 972 similarity score (1000 would be an identical player). Then ask yourself, how much do I really want to trade for Aaron Laffey?

This article will appear on May 12 at RotoInfo.com. Dan Rowinski is a columnist for RotoInfo.com and can be reached at DanRowinski@RotoInfo.com.

Fantasy Owners: Don't Panic, It Is Only April

Set the barn on fire, slaughter all the livestock, and poison the wells. You are in the midst of being conquered and, for the moment, there is no hope in sight. 

But wait. Is that the sound of a friendly bugle? Are their reinforcements for our weary troops? Has the cavalry arrived to save us from certain destruction?

The answer is no, the cavalry has been here since the beginning.

It is the beginning of the fantasy season and you are sitting on the bottom of your league. You thought you had a good draft but key components are not living up to expectations. Josh Beckett has not turned out to be the ace you thought he was, Manny Ramirez may be showing his age and that sleeper pick who you absolutely knew would be setting the league on fire from the sound of the bell is languishing on the bench or in the minors.

Do not fear, intrepid fantasy owner. Remember the key to all statistical analysis (especially pertinent in baseball) – everything comes back to the mean.

The guy who is leading your league by a mile right now because he (for some reason no one can quite figure out) drafted and started Vernon Wells, Daric Barton and Dallas Braden? Yeah, he is not going to keep that up. 

There is a reason that the core statistics in baseball hardly ever deviate from their averages. Over the long run of the season the sample size becomes so large that the numbers cannot help but stay within similar ranges. Season over season and “average” major leaguer will hit around .265 with a .326 on-base percentage and .414 slugging percentage. If you have done your due diligence and have taken players who have career averages above those means then there is a good chance that they will eventually perform back to their historical value.

What does this mean? Do not go out and sell Victor Martinez just because he is batting .250 on April 14. It also means that you should look at players like Blue Jays reliever Casey Janssen have probably just gotten lucky to already have three wins in the first week and a half.

A closer look at Janssen. He has the league leading three wins, but he also only has three innings pitched with four strikeouts and two walks. On April 8 he came he came in to a game the Jays were losing 1-0, threw a scoreless inning then watched as Toronto scored three runs in the ninth for the win. The next night he allowed a run to the Orioles in the eighth but watched as the Jays scored a couple in the ninth to win 7-6. Two days later he pitched a scoreless seventh against the Orioles and watched his team score three in the eighth and one in the ninth for a 5-2 win.

The lessons here are that Janssen has pretty much been the lucky recipient of some cardiac comebacks by the Blue Jays. Considering the overall lack of talent on the Jays roster, the division they play in and the fact that two of those wins came against the equally hapless Orioles, you get the idea that it is not worth relying on early season indicators as recipes for season long success. Especially when it comes to middle relievers on bad teams.

Janssen is just pertinent example of early season sample size, not a viable fantasy option. There are not many fantasy owners (0.9 percent in all ESPN leagues) who actually own him.

There is a reason that owners in the elite Tout Wars fantasy leagues do not like to trade in the first month of the season. They have crafted, drafted and carved their teams with the hope and knowledge that they believe their players will perform. Why start trading away the Becketts, Martinezes or even Nate McLouths of the world for the (proverbial and literal) Janssens? It is probably not even worth to pick Janssen up on the waiver wire (where you will inevitably find him) because the likelihood that he wins three more games all season is probably quite low. Again: See middle reliever – Toronto Blue Jays.

Conscientious and cerebral owners who have a good pulse on their league can take advantage of the impulse owners who are in an early season panic. There are always bad owners who drafted well by some magic or luck who will be enticed by a trade of big names, say David Ortiz and Eric Chavez for Jason Heyward. If you can find one of those owners in your league, make the deal and do not look back.

Otherwise, it is only April. Remember that everything that rises must converge and exercise your patience.


Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Buyer Beware: The Verducci Effect

Injuries are the great equalizer in fantasy baseball.

Predicting them is difficult, though not impossible. Will Carroll from Baseball Prospectus is a foremost expert on injuries and does a fair job each year of identifying players who have higher or lower risk (and designating them with flags – red, yellow, green etc.) and there are other databases created by the sabermetric community that are very useful when trying to predict whether a player will break down over the course of the year or not.

When it comes to young pitchers, injuries and performance, the general rule over the past few years has been to watch out for the Year After Effect. Better known as the Verducci Effect, named after Sports Illustrated baseball writer Tom Verducci , the rule is defined “as any 25-and-under pitcher who increased his innings log by more than 30 in a year in which he pitched in the big leagues” by Verducci in his Feb. 16 article on SI.com.

The idea is that pitchers under 25 should be allowed to gradually develop at the major league level. If a pitcher goes 30 innings or more above his previous career high, he is at risk for the Verducci Effect.

The poster boy in recent memory for this has to be Cole Hamels. In leading the Phillies to the World Series title in 2008 he ended up pitching 253.1 innings between the regular season and playoffs. That was 63.1 innings more than he pitched combined in 2007 and it comes as no surprise that he struggled in 2009 with 193.2 regular season innings and another 19 in the postseason.

Hamels went 14-10 in ’08 with a 3.09 ERA, 142 ERA + and a league leading 1.082 WHIP. In 2009 he went 10-11 with a 4.32 ERA, 98 ERA + and 1.286 WHIP. Going by the ERA + numbers (where 100 is average), that is a 44 percent decrease in performance from year to year.

To be fair, there are pitchers who escape the Verducci Effect. Jon Lester pitched 237 innings in ’08 (with postseason) and, after some early struggles, was a dominant pitcher for the Red Sox in ’09 and has a lot of analysts picking him as a top Cy Young contender this year.

What to expect this year? I did some research and found a plethora of young pitchers who could be at risk for the Verducci Effect this year. Some of the names on my list match Verducci’s own (he has made predictions on 10 pitchers at SI.com) and a couple of them are no-brainers.

The first place to look is at three particular organizations known for riding young pitchers – Los Angeles, Detroit and Atlanta.

All three franchises have been playing with fire, to a certain extent, year after year with young pitchers. The Dodgers Chad Billingsley threw 147 innings in ’07 and then a combined 212.1 in ’08. Billingsley was 16-10 with a 3.43 ERA in ’08 then 12-11 with a 4.03 ERA in ’09.

This year Joe Torre has another pitcher with red flags in the form of 21-year-old Clayton Kershaw. In ’08, at age 20, he pitched 107.2 big league innings and then threw 184.1 a year later. Will his performance continue to climb in ’10 or will he find himself on the disabled list or generally ineffective this summer?

Then there is Detroit, a team that has pushed young arms like Justin Verlander, Jair Jurjenns and Armando Galarraga hard in their young careers. They did it again in ’09 with 20-year-old Rick Porcello who threw 170.2 innings last year, about 45 more than his previous minor league high. Porcello was also asked to throw a lot of high effort innings as the Tigers imploded down the stretch last year to miss the postseason.

The Braves pushed Tommy Hanson last year, mostly because he was a stud for them straight out of the gate. Between the minors and his time with the big club, he pitched 183.2 innings, 45.2 more than his previous minor league high. The Braves rode another young pitcher (oddly enough acquired from the Tigers organization) in Jurrjens who hit a career high 188.1 innings in ’08 after not pitching more than 142.1 in a season before that. Jurjenns had 215 innings last year and it should come as no surprise that he is dealing with some arm issues this spring.

Who else to keep a close eye on this year? Look out for Florida’s Josh Johnson (+ 52), Oakland’s Trevor Cahill (+ 54.1) and Brett Anderson (+ 55.1), Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez (+31.1 with postseason) and Max Scherzer (+ 42). Especially look out for Scherzer since he was traded to the Tigers in the offseason and it is a team desperate to make the playoffs and will push its pitchers as far as they will go.

This year’s poster boy for the Verducci Effect will probably end up being Homer Bailey, who only had 203 combined major/minor league innings last year that were 55.1 more than his career high. As Verducci points out, there was no reason for Bailey to throw that many innings last year, especially for a team that looks to be a dark horse coming into 2010.

The best way to prevent injuries from ruining your fantasy season is to keep an eye on the news wire, which is exactly the thing we do here at RotoInfo. Stay ahead of the game and make roster moves as soon as you are sure that you will lose one of your contributors for an extended period of time.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Value and Pitfalls of Stephen Strasburg

Jason Heyward may be the next uber-prospect to break into the batter’s box, but when it comes to the crème de la crème of hyped prospects is definitely Stephen Strasburg.

Young pitchers are much harder to project than young hitters. Basically the way it works is that when an especially young hitter proves that he can hit, he will not lose that talent barring significant injury. Think Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey, Jr., Barry Bonds and maybe even Justin Upton.

Hyped young pitchers are different. For every Rogers Clemens, there is a Ben Macdonald. For every Felix Hernandez there is an equivalent Rick Ankiel.

Every player named thus far has had the same things in common – they were known as elite, once in a generation prospects and broke into the majors by their early 20s. Strasburg turns 22 on July 20th and figures to have been in the majors for at least a month by then. The plan for the rookie pitcher for now is to send him to Double A Harrisburg to let him get acclimatized to professional baseball for a little while before bringing him up to The Show to turn him loose.

A couple of questions arise: how soon is too soon to bring up Strasburg? How well will his stuff play in the majors coming more or less straight out of college? Can the young man handle the pressure?

For our purposes, the pertinent question becomes: what kind of fantasy impact can we expect from Straburg this season?

History gives us some clues.

Here are three pitchers who were high draft picks with elite expectations with time spent in the minors and performance in the first year they were called up.

Player A – Minors time: 15 games, 74.2 innings
First season: 21 games (15 starts), 118.2 innings, 8 wins, 5 losses, 2.43 ERA, 159 ERA +, 1.037 WHIP, 4.9 K/9, 1.86 K/BB

Player B – Minors time: 55 games, 278.1 innings
First season: 26 games started, 166.2 innings, 13 wins, 6 losses, 3.40 ERA, 129 ERA +, 1.212 WHIP, 12.6 K/9, 2.74 K/BB

Player C – Minors time: 9 games, 51 innings
First season: 19 games started, 116.2 innings, 6 wins, 6 losses, 3.32 ERA, 122 ERA+, 1.166 WHIP, 11.3 K/9, 3.387 K/BB

Player A and Player C were considered the best pitching prospects in memory in their respective drafts. Neither pitched badly in their first seasons and, especially in the case of Player C, showed great promise with his periphery numbers. Both players spent very little times in the minors and were with their big league teams in their first full year as professionals.

Player B was a little bit different as he spent parts of a few seasons in the minors before coming up in 1998 and blowing the doors off the league. He would team with Player C to make a very formidable rotation punch in the very memorable 2003 National League Championship series.

Got it yet?

Player A is Ben Macdonald, the first pick overall in the 1989 draft. Player B is Kerry Wood (4th overall, 1995) which would, of course, make Mark Prior (2nd overall – 2001).

Let us start with Macdonald. He was considered to be one of the best arms in a generation when he was drafted and he ended up having serviceable, though no where near sterling, numbers as a pro. His lifetime line of 78 wins, 70 losses, 3.91 ERA, 115 ERA + and 6.02 K/9 makes him slightly above average and he never really registered the “break out” superstar season that should be expected from a No. 1 overall.

Maybe Macdonald was overvalued in the first place but fantasy leaguers had a fair argument for picking him up in his first few seasons on hype and potential alone, if only to be marginally disappointed later.

Wood and Prior are different stories and, for our purposes, much closer to Strasburg than Macdonald. Wood may have benefited over Prior in the long term for his slower ascent through the minors (Wood is still pitching in the big leagues whereas Prior’s flame has pretty much been extinguished). In Wood’s first season he put up an astonishing number of strikeouts (233) and led the league in hits against (6.3/9) which, if he walked less batters, who have led to one of the most dominant seasons in history.

Wood was a must-have when he came up and probably only the most ardent of stat heads and minor league followers (or Cubs fans) had him on their fantasy roster for his 20 strikeout performance on May 6, 2008.

Prior was similar in that regard. He did not have quite the gaudy overall numbers that Wood did but his 11.3 K/9 and 3.87 K/BB were impressive and added up to a 1.16 WHIP, enough below league average to be serviceable. He did not add many wins and his overall accomplishments were marginalized in terms of fantasy value as he only had 116.2 innings. That makes him better than any reliever you could pick up but still on the fringe of quality fantasy depth.

So, what does this all mean for you, me, Strasburg and our fantasy leagues? Don’t get too excited. He could come out of the gate like Wood (or Dwight Gooden or Roger Clemens) and be a firecracker and have instant fantasy value. Or, he could go the Prior route and be good but only fringe worthy because of innings limitations, which fantasy owners always like to maximize.

From what we have seen from Strasburg this spring, he will probably be with the Nationals by June, at the very latest. Keep an eye on his progress because you would not want to miss picking him off the waiver wire (as long as somebody does not already have him stashed away) for a few quality starts before the All Star break.

Or he could be Macdonald.

In which case we will hear The Beltway cry in their cups for years to come.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Value of Jason Heyward

Note: This article will appear on RotoInfo.com.

Every year there is a player on the major league baseball horizon that has fans, scouts, managers and fantasy players falling our of their seats.

Last year it was Baltimore catcher Matt Wieters along with Rays pitcher David Price. Before that it was Evan Longoria, Clay Buchholz, Joba Chamberlain, Jay Bruce … the list goes on.

And now we have Jason Heyward.

The reviews are coming in and the consensus is that Heyward will be some approximation between Hank Aaron and Darryl Strawberry (without the nasty cocaine habit).

For a more pertinent comparison, let’s look at Strawberry as opposed to Aaron. Strawberry broke into the big leagues with the Mets in 1983 at the age of 21 and had 473 plate appearances with a .257 average, .336 on-base percentage, 63 runs, 74 RBI and 26 home runs in 122 games.

A little more recent history shows that Longoria, young and similarly touted to Heyward and Strawberry, put up a .272 average, .343 on-base percentage, 67 runs, 85 RBI and 27 home runs in 508 plate appearances, also in 122 games.

What does this mean for Heyward? If the hype is to be believed, he is a step above what Strawberry and Longoria were when they came out. He has a physical gifts of nature with patience at the plate patience that could approach Barry Bonds with the (later years Bonds) power to go with it.

Braves manager Bobby Cox is so excited to have Heyward around for his final season on the bench that Atlanta is ignoring the recognized practices of holding uber-prospects back in the minors to forestall their arbitration clocks. So, unlike Strawberry or Longoria, Heyward is likely to eclipse 122 games played and 500 plate appearances, barring injury.

Let’s say that he gets around 650 plate appearances. In each of their first full seasons Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols were at that level and had 28 and 37 home runs, respectively.

The comparisons never end. Yet, if the sabermetric community, which values historical comparison as a means of quantifiable projection, the comparisons are the most important factor there is to find out what exactly can be expected of Heyward this season. An average between .275 and .290, on-base of .340 to .370 with 80 to 90 RBI and 27 to 35 home runs?

Very reasonable numbers to expect from a first year pro, no matter how much validated hype that surrounds him. But, where does that leave him in terms of fantasy value?

If you were in an early bird league, you probably could have snagged Heyward after the on the waiver wire or at the very end of the draft. A couple of months of media hype, comparisons and a guaranteed roster spot later, Heyward is going around 144^th over at ESPN’s average draft position and will cost between $12 to $15 at auction. That is probably what he is worth at this point though he has the potential to jump to elite status if he trends more to the Pujols side of rookie performance as opposed to Longoria/Fielder model.

It is doubtful that the Braves will go slowly with Heyward the way the Diamondbacks have done with Justin Upton. Really, this is the team that brought up Jordan Schafer after a strong spring last year to watch him have a great first game before dive bombing the next 49 games and being sent back to the minors.

That will not happen with Heyward.

Schafer was a flash in the Spring Training pan that had not performed exceptionally well at Class AA Mississippi in 2008 (.269 average, .378 on-base, 10 home runs and 51 RBI) before having a great spring in 2009 to make team. There was some buzz (not enough to call hype) and I will admit that I took him with the last pick of my draft in an extremely deep league before dumping him in the middle of April.

Heyward is more physically mature than Schafer or Upton were at a similar age and seems to have the mental make up that the both the Upton brothers have lacked early in their careers. Heyward will probably get the requisite plate appearances that will make him a viable fantasy option.

Is it worth jumping up in your draft to get him at say, the 120^th pick? Probably not, if you trust the projections.  Better value picks at this point might be some of the guys with track records where you know they won’t fall off a cliff and destroy your outfield. Think players like Torii Hunter, Nick Markakis, Brad Hawpe (in leagues that have absolute no defensive metrics) who should be available at the time you are thinking about taking Heyward. If you have already drafted a couple solid outfielders from the first and second tiers on the production ladder, take Heyward. If you are looking for second outfield production from him, you might end up disappointed.

This year at least.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Baseball: The Reliever Conundrum

Fantasy baseball owners year in and year out face the reliever conundrum.

What is the reliever conundrum? The fact that in standard 5x5 rotisserie leagues saves is a major fantasy category yet in the grand scheme of things relievers do not offer much value.

For instance, say you want to win the saves, ERA and WHIP categories and plan on doing it with mostly relievers. The first big problem here is that most leagues have a minimum qualification for innings pitched. You do not reach that threshold you are out of contention for winning that league. The innings requirement in turn marginalizes relievers ERA and WHIP totals because those categories are based on cumulative results. The innings threshold makes you carry starting pitchers. Say you have five starters and four relievers with a couple pitchers in reserve. Most fantasy baseball players want to maximize their starters innings to have the highest possibility of strikeout and win totals so a diligent owner might see each one of those five starting pitcher slots throw 250 or so innings to their total.

Of the 16 players with more than 30 saves last year, only four threw more than 70 innings (with Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton topping out 76 for, who else, Joe Torre) with the majority of pitchers falling between 60-69 innings. Even if your four to five relief pitchers have sterling ERAs and WHIPs, the cumulative effect of your relievers 250 to 300 innings will only be about 20 to 30 percent of your overall ERA and WHIP categories.

There is a flip side to this argument as well. If you are behind in saves in the middle of the season and there are multiple yet less than stellar options available either via trade or free agency, go get them and plug them in to your roster. Players like Matt Capps of the Nationals, Leo Nunez of the Marlins or Frank Francisco of the Rangers do not have typical closer ERAs but can get your team some saves. With their marginal amount of total innings pitched you should not be too worried about the cumulative effect of their poor numbers. They can help you tremendously in one category while having a negligible effect in others.

That is only half of the conundrum though. What about head-to-head leagues where being on top of your starting pitching is what separates winners from the also-rans? Since the scoring is on a week-to-week basis, the cumulative effect gets tossed out the window. The key with handling relief pitchers in head-to-head circumstances is to try and play the matchups with as much precision as you can. Are the Nationals visiting the Philles for a four game weekend set? Probably not a good weekend for Capps. Nats have three against Pittsburgh and three against Houston? OK for Capps.

Also check the starting pitching matchups. Ubaldo Jimenez starting twice in a week against, say, Bronson Arroyo and Job Niese? Start Huston Street (when healthy, of course). Head-to-head fantasy is all about the matchups and being able to pair closers with teams that are hot or are playing weak opponents etc. is a beneficial tactic.

For the most part, depending on the depth and scoring style of your league, closers are the only real viable fantasy options. In deeper leagues that use holds as a stat it is beneficial to pick up a few key setup men on good teams. Pair them with their closers will make it a double whammy. Imagine a 3-1 Red Sox victory where your fantasy team had Josh Beckett go seven innings, Daniel Bard in the eighth and Jonathan Papelbon the save in the ninth. Your fantasy team had a monopoly on that entire Red Sox win and with a finite amount of opportunities available to pick up stats, that would be a very valuable combination. Not only are you taking that game, you are keeping those stats out of your opponent’s categories.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist at RotoInfo.com If you have any questions or comments feel free to email him at DanRowinski@rotoinfo.com or you can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Stealing Fantasy Value

This article can be found (soon) at RotoInfo.com. Photo left courtesy of the Washington Post.

For years the steal has been an overlooked fantasy stat. Why not? The steroid era made us all fall in love with the big boppers who could rack up the home runs, RBI and runs totals and we stocked our teams with big run producers with little other redeeming value (I am looking at you, Jermaine Dye).

Getting specific players to fill specific categories is not necessarily a bad thing. Balance is overrated in fantasy baseball. A team should definitely be crafted to be stronger in some areas over another, but that does not mean you completely neglect other categories. A lineup full of home run hitters tends to not steal a lot of bases and so on.

During a fantasy draft, the place you do not want to pick up category specific players is in the first four to five rounds. Good talent is always available well into the fifth round. Take the best player at the premium positions and be patient. The old saying is that you cannot win your fantasy baseball draft in the first (couple) of rounds, but you can lose it.

Where you win fantasy baseball is by exploiting market inefficiency in the middle rounds and finding the key sleepers in the late rounds or on the waiver wire. This is where the category of steals comes in.

In ESPN’s free league, the average draft position (ADP) of Carl Crawford is 10^th. Jacoby Ellbury is 20^th.  Both of these players do three specific things for you – steal bases, score runs and hit for average (though Crawford threw in a bonus 15 home runs last year).

2009 Stats:

Ellsbury – 691 plate appearances, .301 average, .355 on-base percentage, 94 runs, 8 home runs, 70 stolen bases

Crawford – 672 plate appearances, .305 average, .364 On-base percentage, 96 runs, 15 home runs, 60 stolen bases.

Now take a look at three young outfielders with ADPs in the middle rounds.

Player A – ADP 84, 493 plate appearances, .286 average, .365 on-base percentage, 74 runs, 12 home runs, 22 stolen bases

Player B – ADP 135, 533 plate appearances, .307 average, .369 on-base percentage, 74 runs, 3 home runs, 42 stolen bases

Player C – ADP 158, 390 plate appearances, .305 average, .360 on-base percentage, 65 runs, 3 home runs, 41 stolen bases

Outfield, by definition, is the deepest category of in fantasy baseball. Yes, it is nice to have guys like Crawford on your team but the 10^th pick in a draft may be better spent on taking someone at a position where there is a bigger drop off after the elite players. Joe Mauer (ADP 13) would not be a bad player at the 10^th spot because there are not any catchers worth drafting at value after him for about six rounds.

So, what do players A, B and C give at better value than going after Crawford or Ellsbury in the top rounds? All three hit for average, have high stolen base totals (or potential for more) and score enough runs that they will not kill you in that category.

Players A, B and C (in order) are Andrew McCutchen, Nyjer Morgan and Rajai Davis.

If you went for power and production near the top of the draft, sprinkled in some pitchers along the way and took these three players, you should be able to come close to winning the stolen base category and have trade leverage late in the season on any team that lags in that category.

In a value bet, these three are good for your money. They provide multi-category (average, stolen base) bang that can lengthen your roster and put you in the middle to top of several offensive categories. Remember, in fantasy you can win a league without winning a category but having strong performances in almost all categories definitely helps. You can lead by a mile in home runs but you do not get more points for how big your lead is.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

You can help Sports Chutney by visiting Amazon to look for some baseball related books. My favorite, as always, is anything from Baseball Prospectus. Baseball Prospectus 2010 now available.